


Faults

by drugdog



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: M/M, it's there if you squint, the ship i mean not the babe mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-05
Updated: 2014-07-05
Packaged: 2018-02-07 13:39:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1901040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drugdog/pseuds/drugdog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe thinks it's his fault. The fucker's self-esteem issues are more obvious than Bill's STD. Bill's never been good at comforting folks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Faults

**Author's Note:**

> Feeling like Joe at the time being, but I write Bill better.  
> Unbeta'd and written at two in the morning. Feel free to point out any mistakes you find.

“I’m sorry.”

Bill was looking up at the ceiling, twirling an unlit cigarette between his forefinger and thumb. Joe’s words stopped him. He turned his head to look and jutted out his jaw.

Joe had said that when they first woke up in the aid station, delirious and in pain. Bill was sure his leg had still been hanging off.

Those two words made his leg- its remainder- twitch. Sometimes it felt like all of it was there again. The flatness of his sheets after his knee stopped that phantom feeling quick as anything.

“Joe. Please. Shut the fuck up.”

Joe breathed in, fast and loud. “Alright, yeah,” he said. He rolled onto his stomach. Bill knew it was an excuse not to look at him. “I meant it.”

 _I did too,_ Bill wanted to say, _and I’ll put a bullet in your goddamn skull if you don’t shut your trap, motherfucker,_  but he and Joe were pissed at each other for the first couple of weeks anyway. Bill didn’t like the silent treatment.

“You meant it the last ten times, too,” he griped instead, “I fucking get it. You think it’s your fault.”

“And you think it ain’t. Let’s agree to fucking disagree.” Joe’s voice was muffled by the sheets. Even in the for-once-thank-Jesus-Christ quiet of the field hospital, Bill strained to hear him.

He thought back to Bastogne, where he was supposed to be holed up with some other paratrooper, but ended up in Joe’s foxhole. _It was always Joe’s or Babe’s and no fella had the balls to tell me off about it._ He remembered laying on his side, facing a dirt wall, with his arms drawn up to his chest. He was freezing his ass off and needing to piss, but dreading the pain that came with relieving himself.

_I’m so fuckin’ stupid. Getting gonorr-fucking-hea._

There’d been a quiet noise and Bill’d twitched, ready to grab his gun.

Bill thought, at first, that Joe was laughing, all breathy. Then there had been a sniff. A quick side-eye, the kind that made his eye ache, told him Joe was sobbing. “I wanna go home,” Joe muttered, voice breaking. “I wanna fuckin’ go home.”

 _Don’t we all,_ Bill’d thought, even though the sight made him feel empty inside more than the excuse for chow he ate every day. If Joe, who was almost twenty-five to his nearly twenty-three, was feeling low, what was he supposed to think? _Ain’t the older boys supposed to lead by example?_

Bill jolted back to the present with a chill going down his spine. A draft was passing through, and that with the memory was too much.

Joe snored softly, and Bill could almost see him in the morning with drool crusted on his face. If he didn’t wake up, shouting as he did in that god forsaken forest, twisting in the confines of his blanket. Those were the worst nights.

“It ain’t your fault, Joe,” he said, and resumed twirling his cigarette.


End file.
